III. Functionalist perspectives

Tu. 9.11

The Arabic grammarians: language as a rational functionally motivated system.

Th. 11.11

Voloshinov: language as social interaction.

• Voloshinov, Marxism and the Theory of Language, Part II.

Tu. 16.11

Hawkins: processing explanations for syntactic structure.

• Reading TBA.

Th. 18.11

The functionalism vs. formalism debate.

• F. Newmeyer, Language Form and Language Function (MIT Press 1998), ch. 5.
• Haspelmath (1988), ``Why can't we talk to each other?''
• Haspelmath (2002), Ch. 3 on the nature of explanation.

Tu. 23.11

The Minimalist Program: Language as an optimal computational system.

• Chomsky, New Horizons in the Study of Language, in his New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind (p. 3-18), 2000.
• Chomsky, Beyond Explanatory Adequacy, MIT OPL Number 20, 2000. [This one is recommended for syntacticians only.]

Th. 25.11

Thanksgiving recess.